Genealogy, DNA led California police to serial crimes suspect
SACRAMENTO: California investigators tracked down the man they suspect is the Golden State Killer by comparing crime scene DNA to information on genealogy websites consumers use to trace their ancestry, a prosecutor revealed yesterday.
Former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo (72) was arrested on Wednesday outside the Sacramentoarea home where he has lived for at least two decades, not far from the site of the first of eight murders he is charged with committing 40 years ago.
DeAngelo, described by neighbours as an oddball and loner known to fly into occasional fits of solitary rage, is suspected of 12 slayings in all. He also is accused of committing 45 rapes and scores of home invasions in a crime spree that spanned 10 years and 10 California counties during the 1970s and 1980s.
Announcing his arrest, authorities said DeAngelo’s name had never surfaced as a suspect prior to last week, when a DNA match was made.
Officials initially did not disclose how their investigation led to DeAngelo, whose DNA had never previously been collected.
Yesterday, Steve Grippi, chief deputy district attorney for Sacramento County, said detectives narrowed their search by using genetic information available through commercial genealogy websites furnishing personal family histories to consumers who send DNA samples in for analysis.
Grippi said investigators compared DNA samples left by the perpetrator at a crime scene to genetic profiles on the ancestry sites, looking for similarities.
He did not say whether the websites volunteered the information.
Detectives followed the family trees of close matches, seeking blood relatives fitting a rough profile of the killer. The process produced a lead a week ago, pointing to DeAngelo based on his age and whereabouts at the time of the attacks..
Investigators found DeAngelo and obtained his DNA from a discarded object, finding a match to a crime scene sample. A second, decisive sample was collected days later.. — Reuters